Mindset

Author: (American) Alfred North Whitehead / Liu Fangtong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-12-01
Features: The main theories proposed in these lectures are that the factors in our experience are "clear and distinct" in terms of variability, as long as they can be verified within the appropriate period required by their importance. Necessary things are immutable, and for this reason, they are vaguely and indistinctly present behind thought. Therefore, philosophical truth should be sought in the assumptions of language rather than in its explicit statements. For this reason, philosophy is similar to poetry, both striving to express what we call the highest intellect of civilization. The first six chapters of this book, namely and , are lectures I delivered at Wellesley College in Massachusetts during the 1937–1938 semester, shortly after my retirement from Harvard. This fortunate opportunity allowed me to condense some of the content of my lectures at Harvard for publication, which had been incompletely elaborated in my previously published works. The third chapter, titled Nature and Life, consists of two lectures delivered four years ago at the University of Chicago, which were published by the University of Chicago Press in the United States and by Cambridge University Press in the United Kingdom. Originally, it was planned to compile them into a part of a book similar to this one. However, due to various reasons, this plan was not completed as scheduled. The concluding chapter, The Purpose of Philosophy, is a revised version of a short speech I delivered at an annual welcome ceremony for graduates of the Department of Philosophy at Harvard University and Radcliffe College in 1935, which was published in the Harvard Alumni Magazine. Alfred North Whitehead, April 25, 1938
The translation of Whitehead's Modes of Thought was completed by me as early as 1964. I remember after publishing my translation of Bergson's Introduction to Metaphysics in the Commercial Press in 1963, I had thought about whether I could continue translating something; the editorial staff also asked me if I was still interested in this and sent me the book Modes of Thought by Whitehead for trial translation. At that time, I was under the guidance of Professor Quan Zengju, attempting to teach a course on modern Western philosophy under the name "Critique of Modern Foreign Bourgeois Philosophy" at the Department of Philosophy, Fudan University. Professor Quan, who had studied at Harvard in his early years and was a student of Whitehead, had a deep understanding of Whitehead's philosophy. He believed that studying Whitehead's philosophy would be very beneficial for understanding the development of modern Western philosophy as a whole, and translating Whitehead's own works would be a more solid way to understand him. Therefore, I agreed with the Commercial Press to translate this book. During the translation process, I received guidance from Professor Quan at all times, and after completing the entire translation, he also proofread it for me. Based on my limited understanding of Whitehead at the time, I wrote a preface for the Chinese translation (Preface to the Chinese Translation: An Introduction to Whitehead's Philosophy), and I remember sending it along with the translation manuscript to the Commercial Press in 1964. Due to various reasons, especially the start of the "Cultural Revolution," the normal publishing order was disrupted, and the book was not published in time. This was followed by the ten-year turmoil, during which Whitehead, as a reactionary philosopher, found it even harder to have his books published. I also rarely thought about it anymore. After the end of the ten-year turmoil, roughly in the late 1970s, when I met with the editorial staff of the Commercial Press, I mentioned this manuscript to them, and they expressed their intention to arrange for its publication. Feeling that the preface I wrote in the 1960s largely adhered to the old framework of simple negation and was clearly outdated, I took it back and prepared to rewrite it. In the following two decades, I was too busy with teaching, compiling and revising the textbook Modern Western Philosophy, completing several research projects that had deadlines set by the state and the Ministry of Education, and engaging in various social work, leaving no time for translation. I also did not conduct any separate research on Whitehead. The aforementioned preface not only remained unwritten but was also lost. The Commercial Press never followed up on it. As far as I know, they had a large backlog of manuscripts from before the Cultural Revolution to process, so it was not surprising that my translation had not been published, and I did not mind it either. Therefore, I did not proactively bring this up with the Commercial Press again, nor did I think about it much. It wasn’t until 1997 that I unexpectedly received a letter from Mr. Zhang Boyou of the Translation Department at the Commercial Press. He told me that while clearing out old manuscripts, they discovered my translation and hoped I would review it before submitting it for publication. I was naturally delighted by this. However, at that time, I was busy compiling A New Edition of Modern Western Philosophy, so I replied that if it were to be published soon, I would not be able to proofread it, but if it were not to be published soon, I would certainly proofread it myself. I estimated that the Commercial Press was not in a hurry to publish it either, and the matter was postponed again. In 2000, I received another letter from Mr. Zhu Yang of the Translation Department at the Commercial Press, saying that he was reviewing my manuscript. He raised some comments on the translation of certain terms but also mentioned that a few pages were missing and asked me to return the aforementioned preface. The first few specific issues were relatively easy to resolve. However, the original preface was already lost, and even if it had been found, it could not be used. How to write a preface that provided a more fair introduction to Whitehead's philosophy was a challenge for me at the time. Because in recent years, I had not focused on studying Whitehead's philosophy and still had only a superficial understanding of it. Writing an introduction to Whitehead's philosophy would require some research. More importantly, this translation manuscript was completed nearly 40 years ago, and it was inevitable that it had many shortcomings. It should be possible for me to proofread it as much as possible myself. All of this required a lot of time. And in the past two years, I was too busy with other pressing matters. As a result, I had to postpone it again. However, no matter how busy I was, as long as I still had the intention to publish this manuscript, I had to make some necessary preparations for it and could no longer delay it. Therefore, during the summer of 2002, I took the time to proofread the old manuscript. Since the mid-1960s, I had not engaged in translation work. This proofreading, in terms of technique, seemed rusty. I did not make significant changes to the original translation, but it was likely that there were still many inappropriate places. A few months ago, Mr. Zhu Yang told me that a translation of this book by Whitehead had been published by the Huaxia Press in 1998, and he suggested I find it for reference. However, I did not buy the book myself, and I could not find it in the Fudan University Department of Philosophy library. This reference would undoubtedly be helpful, but it might also cause some problems. I decided to skip it! As for the introduction to Whitehead's philosophy, I tried to write it several times but gave up halfway through. The main reason was that I felt I was not very successful in writing it, and it might mislead readers if used as the preface to this book. Therefore, I thought it was better not to write it. Fortunately, in recent years, the philosophy circles in China have already published some introductions to Whitehead, including monographs and translations. There are also a few experts on American philosophy who have introduced Whitehead in their works. I suggest readers interested in and studying Whitehead refer to these works. Liu Fangtong, March 30, 2003